But the Accountant General of the Federation’s (AGF) Report submitted to the ad hoc committee and obtained by New Telegraph shows that 1,723 contractors never went to the site after collecting N70,495,993,761.
The report indicates that “90 per cent of these contracts were awarded between 2011 and 2012 during the Goodluck Jonathan administration. It need be strengthened that some of these contractors have three to four jobs with their mobilization payments without reporting to site.”
Details of the contracts show that in Abia State, out of N17.641 billion contract sum, N2.027 billion was paid for 32 projects. In Akwa Ibom, N4.229 billion paid out of N31.681 billion contract for 64 projects. In Bayelsa, N4.970 billion paid out of N27.647 billion contract for 80 projects. In Cross River, N2.065 billion paid out of N13.451 billion for 29 projects, while Delta has 99 projects for which N7.836 billion has been paid out of N31.765 billion.
In Edo State, N2.065 billion has been paid for 51 projects out of N13.927 billion. In Imo, N1.859 billion paid out for 33 projects out of N13.184 billion, while Ondo and Rivers have 50 and 106 projects for which N6.173 billion and N13.146 billion have been paid out of N29.977 billion and N56.717 billion contracts respectively.
The report said “in the auditor’s opinion, this ugly trend will continue in the system in as much as the same class of people were recycling in the management and board of the commission.”
It further stated that “one can therefore imagine why the region is not developed, when a developmental programme is being awarded as contract to be completed within six months and the contractor would collect mobilization without reporting to site.
“The report above excluded those contractors that collected mobilization and reported to site but with insignificant achievement before abandoning the projects. This equally excluded those in which the commission has declared their projects as stalled.
“It is a common practice for the commission’s contractors to collect mobilization and refuse to move to site. The blame for this should not only go to the contractors but equally to the management of NDDC, who awarded contracts that were not in existence, that is contracts without identification of site, resulting to non-reporting to site by the contractor.
“Beside the above, it was also observed that about 50 per cent of the contractors who claimed they have executed their various contracts specifications and completed with supported engineers valuation certificate were later found out by the team that some merely collected money for work not executed.”
Meanwhile, the governor of Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Mr. Godwin Emefiele, is to appear before the probe panel investigating projects abandoned by the NDDC on Thursday.
Chairman of the committee, Hon. Ossai Nicholas Ossai, confirmed this in a chat with newsmen yesterday.
Ossai explained that though the CBN governor was to appear before the committee on Tuesday, the letter of invitation was delayed so the committee had to reschedule it to Thursday.
But New Telegraph further gathered that there is pressure on the leadership of the House to dissolve the investigating committee following the sordid revelations coming out from the probe so far.
An insider in the committee confided in our correspondent that some of the indicted companies and contractors were using fronts to impress on the leadership of the House to stop the committee from further probe.
“I can confirm to you that the work of this committee has sent jitters to most of the contractors and companies that either collected payments without going to site or those who collected and later abandoned the sites and they are running helter-skelter trying to use some people in the House to influence the House leadership to dissolve the ad hoc committee. We have heard rumours like this.
“But I know who Speaker Femi Gbajabiamila is; he will not listen to anybody that comes with such a complaint, so we are not bothered. We are doing our job and we have told the chairman not to be shaken but to remain resolute and I can assure you, we will get to the root of this rot.
“It is a shame that a commission that was established to redress the injustice done to the Niger Delta is being turned into a bazaar for sharing contracts and not executing them,” the lawmaker stated.
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